Note: Eligibility for food stamps varies according to income, number of dependents and other factors. This estimate of Walmart’s potential cost from raising wages is based on wages for a Walmart employee with one dependent working 30 hours a week, a typical retail worker based on federal data.

“One in seven Americans is on food stamps today. That’s more than twice what the rate was in 2000. Some of that can be explained by changing eligibility requirements and job-losses during the recession. But the fastest growing group of food stamp participants in the last few decades are people who have jobs and work full year-round,” writes Andrew Bouvé at Marketplace.

The video above provides an estimate of “how much more Wal-Mart might have to charge for some products, if it raised wages high enough that a typical worker earned too much to qualify for food stamps.”

Related Questions

Yes. The Walmart model is exploitive of vendors, employees, and taxpayers. That’s why we do and will not shop there until it changes its morally repugnant business model.

Jeff

Don’t buy their products if that’s how you feel, at least there you get a choice.

TLeeT

Jeff – Your narrow view misses the big picture. I choose not to buy their products. Yet, it’s not my choice to help Walmart’s bottom line because their employees need to use SNAP benefits for food or Section 8 for housing.

Jeff

It is your choice to demand that everyone gets SNAP benefits and Section 8 housing.

Joe

Everyone should get SNAP benefits, it would eliminate the burden of the need for bureaucratic “proof” that you qualify.
Monetarist Milton Friedman agrees! Only he would go further and make those SNAP benefits not restricted to food, but cold hard cash! What a crazy socialist.

Jeff

You misunderstand the meaning of the quote you just referenced; Friedmean is trying to show that when you hand out benefits in the form of cash to “everyone”, it is meaningless for net tax payers because they are simply getting their own money back (after being filtered through government). See how much of a waste that would be? Giving each citizen extra benefits, increasing their taxes…if you’re doing a cash handout, why not just offer lower taxes and save the effort, time and energy. Only a liberal could take an idea meant in jest as a serious proposal.

Here’s another quote from that very wise man: “There’s been one underlying basic fallacy in this whole set of social security and welfare measures, and that is the fallacy – this is at the bottom of it – the fallacy that it is feasible and possible to do good with other people’s money. That view has two flaws. If I want to do good with other people’s money, I first have to take it away from them. That means that the welfare state philosphy of doing good with other people’s money, at it’s very bottom, is a philosophy of violence and coercion. It’s against freedom, because I have to use force to get the money. In the second place, very few people spend other people’s money as carefully as they spend their own.”

Joe

I think if he were joking he would refrain from offering a proposal that is superior to the current social safety net system, but sure, I guess he was “joking.”
But thanks for letting me know I’m a liberal I guess for not getting the joke

Jeff

What in the world? Why was my last comment removed? It was a clear rebuttal to Joe’s comment…it involved clear context for Joe’s chosen quote and I added my own quote from Mr. Friedman. I find it very disturbing that MPR would get involved in political censorship while accepting public dollars. I hope I can get a very valid reason why my comment was removed, also the specific rules that were broken would be nice to know…if my comment violated a rule then I hope that the more left leaning comments are held to the same standard.

Jeff

What in the world? Why was my last comment removed? It was a clear rebuttal to Joe’s comment…it involved clear context for Joe’s chosen quote and I added my own quote from Mr. Friedman. I find it very disturbing that MPR would get involved in censorship while accepting public dollars. I hope I can get a very valid reason why my comment was removed, also the specific rules that were broken would be nice to know…if my comment violated a rule then I hope that the more left leaning comments are held to the same standard.

davehoug

Question: If Walmart is huge and has huge profits, yet pays a cashier the same as all other cashiers in town……does that make only Walmart morally repugnant or all who pay the cashier the same rate??? Sincere question, please reply to davehoug@comcast.net I am really interested in your views because I am not seeing what you are seeing and that means I lack information you have.

Jim G

Doug,
If you haven’t read the book: Who Stole the American Dream by Hedrick Smith you should. He lays out why we are now 5 years into recovery after the Great Recession, but we still now have over 20 million people without jobs.

Chapter 15: Offshoring the Dream:
The Wal-mart Trail to China
“Wal-mart and China have a joint venture. Both of them are geared to selling products in the United States at the lowest possible,… and both are determined to dominate the U.S. economy as much and the can in a wide range of industries.”

I found the section titled: Doing Business with Wal-mart: “A Double- Edged Sword” very enlightening.

“The manufacturer walks in… and Wal-mart’s buyers say… We want you to sell it to us for 5 percent… lower this year. If you want to do business with us, if you want to stay in business, then your’re going to do it our way.” p.226

“Wal-mart’s business model became the template for companies all across the corporate landscape.”

“Wal-Mart’ going to say. ‘If you want our space, you’re going to have to march our price or figure something else to do,.. and so it forces a suppliers to go back upstream… to look for concessions… Then they go to China.’ ” p.228

” Wal-Mart is providing a gateway into the American economy for overseas suppliers in China and elsewhere- and it’s doing it on a scale that unprecedented,”p.233

It comes down that Wal-mart has been a major cause of sending manufacturing to China. Stripping America of ten’s of millions of jobs is a repugnant business model to this American.

Larry Sanderson

Oh heavens no! I’m fine helping the Walmart heirs with our tax dollars! After all, we need our billionaires more than we need Walmart workers! And, thank god for free emergency room medical treatments too! Insurance for workers would just cost that company too much money! So, let’s keep subsidizing them with our tax dollars! Because Freedom! Business! And, the American way!

Rich in Duluth

Yes. To all of you anti-government people, if you don’t want government supporting low wage earners, then we should make sure that big business pays a living wage. Either way, all of us who are consumers and have an income, pay the cost. The minimum wage should be about $15/hour.

JQP

Walmart’s massive data collection wholly ignores their employees living conditions … because that’s “private” and thus none of their business.

Since Walmart doesn’t have that data… somebody needs to provide it to them in a simple metric…. and hourly pay is the best one. Its extremely simple to understand and apply.

It requires no interpretation or legal review… just punch that number in as the new starting wage.

Al

Unless you think the company is going to dig into its profits (which digs into your 401k, pension plan, etc), this video is pointless. Either the consumer pays extra to Walmart for the items, or they save it at the register and pay it to the government to get it to the employee. Six and 1/2 dozen the other.

reggie

Al, it isn’t actually an even choice. The subsidy we (the public) provide to Walmart and other corps through the social welfare programs available to low-paid employees is much less efficient than paying a living wage and reducing public assistance. During a transition to a higher minimum wage there will be a brief disruption of profits, but once the market has adjusted to the higher wages we will have two benefits to drive our economy: people with sufficient income to spend on basic needs (keeping money in greater circulation than the investor class would achieve), and the opportunity to adjust spending on social welfare programs as more people are able to be economically self-sufficient.

I’d much rather pay the real cost of the things I buy and have more people earning a living wage, than subsidize Walmart through my tax payments.

TLeeT

It sounds like you’re saying that money trumps human misery. What you’re simplistic 6/half dozen equation fails to recognize is the added financial and societal benefits of stable families (i.e. less domestic violence), increased morale (e.g. lower drug use rates) and lower crime rates to name a few that come with earning income versus collecting public assistance.
Do you really think the Waltons (worth in excess of $100B) would suffer if their share of the $16B+ income generated off the backs of their low wage workers was scaled back?

davehoug

The owners won’t suffer, neither will they take the wage increase out of their own pocket. They will make SURE the profit flows as always; either thru increased prices or increased automation.

Oh please

Sounds like someone is parroting the party line without giving it any honest thought.

whitedoggie44

If Government is going to increase wages to artifical level for low skill work, eventually technology will simply replace these low skilled workers with machines that do not whine and complain about their working conditions. Something democrats have never understood is the law of unintended consequences. Large employers such as Walmart and Target have the resources to implement these new technologies, small competitors do not and as their cost rise to pay these artifical wages, they will fail.I have empathy for these low skilled workers but solutions are not so simple as mandating minimum wage floors.

Joe

What are you talking about? Increased automation and technological advancements happen whether workers complain or not. It’s not exactly a cause and effect thing. And you say that like automation and technological advancements are bad things!
P.S. Nothing about the question prompt involves wage floors.

whitedoggie44

Correct but nothing drives innovation more than paying unskilled labor artificial wage manadated by government and that is the wage floor within this discussion. I love technology and support advancement as it tends to reward merit and intelligence which means fewer democrats,

Joe

Yeah, Democrats are the worst!

Still not seeing where the wage floors are in this discussion, but I guess some people can’t uphold a conversation without injecting the government into the conversation. Are they Democrats or something?

Jeff

Probably, Democrats tend to inject government in every aspect of life they can possibly do so.

Joe

If only Republicans had a better strategy to combat those of the Democrats, sadly they seem to be distracted on the concept of where that “life” begins.
But that’s fun for Republicans I guess.

kevins

Overgeneralization Jeff…

Oh please

Want a cracker?

Jeff

Who are we to tell a private company to pay workers more money? This is an individual choice for each worker, don’t like the pay then get another job. Can’t find another job then get the skills to get the job you want. Once again we have no right to tell a company or the market what an employee is worth.

Joe

Maybe you are just humble, but you certainly have the right to tell Wal Mart to pay their workers more, don’t let anyone tell you that you do not. Whether Wal Mart should care to listen is a different story.

Jamie

I believe Jeff is properly inferring the “WE” in question to be “we the people” in the form of a government agency requiring Walmart to pay their employees more.

Joe

I don’t think that was anywhere in the premise to the question. In fact, the word “we” was not in the question, nor was it in the greater narrative leading to the question. Sorry.

Jeff

The greater narrative is the fact that we just increased the minimum wage (in this state) in part due to the demagoguery of companies like Walmart. Of course this entire conversation should be had in light of that fact; is it up to the people, through the government, to set wage limits? The premise is based around the minimum wage and if we should impose our beliefs upon the market…I do hope you are considering all those people who now have to work longer hours and those people who can’t find jobs due to the demanding of an increased minimum wage.

Joe

I’m pretty sure answering the question “Should Walmart pay its workers more?” if it is asked by a news blog doesn’t result in anyone losing a job or working longer hours. Especially not through wage floors, because answering that question does not institute wage floors.
When I say Walmart, as an entity, should pay its workers more, it has nothing to do with imposing my belief on any market except for, you know, Walmart supermarkets. Superstores. Warehouses. Whatever. Nobody’s invisible hands are tied by answering that question.

Jeff

Feel free to have an opinion on any issue you want, just understand the consequences of those opinions. The new minimum wage law in Minnesota means a lot of kids won’t find their first job while they’re in high school…too few skills, not productive enough so the productive workers who are productive enough to make $9.50/hr will now be asked to work longer hours and into the evenings (which previously would have been filled by high school or college students). That is the consequence of demanding “good” things without having a full understanding of the ramifications of those “good” things. The vast majority of economists (the rational and reasonable ones that understand supply and demand) realize that a higher minimum wage results in fewer jobs…simply by definition of supply and demand.

KTN

That all sounds good and paranoid, except the wage increase is indexed over 3 years, so that 9.50/hour will not actually happen until 2016, but so much for reality right- especially when there is hyperbole and lies to perpetrate.

Jeff

Lies??? I didn’t say anything about the minimum wage going to $9.50 tomorrow or today. I’m telling you the consequence of a higher minimum wage in general.

Joe

I do feel free to have an opinion on the question “Should Walmart pay its workers more?”, and that opinion has nothing to do with price floors. However, the idea that me having that opinion has an effect on the government is ludicrous, my singular opinion means nothing to the government. I try to vote though, even though it’s usually a challenge.

davehoug

They already have, there was a 90% top income tax rate……it didn’t work out so well 🙂

Joe

I thought maximums were usually one hundred percents of things…

TLeeT

We are the people who subsidize the obscene wealth that the Waltons “earn” by providing public support to Walmart employees who are not being paid a living wage. I don’t shop there, yet you and I fill that wage gap with our tax dollars. That’s why WE should have a say in what baseline income should be in America.

Jeff

That’s your social program that you support for those people who work at Walmart. I’m not in favor of every social program out there like many liberals seem to be.

Joe

Good thing federal income taxes are the only taxes the government ever levies

TLeeT

The other half of that equation is the fact that the multi-billion dollar Walmart doesn’t own it’s share of responsibility for people who are below the poverty level putting in a 40-hour week. Because of this, Walmart benefits, and we are subsitizing their bottom line by picking up where they have failed.

JQP

Yes, acutally you do.
They company has a right to not listen to the individual.
Then the employee has a right to complain about unfair worker-employer relations and request that the equation be equal.

To simplistically compare WalMat 1:1 to each of its employees as peer negotiators is overly simplistic.

In the manner that the government and courts define and clarify : business rigthts/rules, uniform codes, interstate commerce, ownership, copyrights, patents and a host of other protections for businesses, it is entirely the right of that same entity to redress the complaints and problems of customer and employees with company-corporations.

They are literally defined and exist because of the government action Laws and court decisions) on their behalf and are subject to further regulation by that same government.

Jeff

You bring me back to my first point, don’t work at Walmart if you don’t like how they run their business. Don’t buy their products if you don’t like how they run their business…we don’t need new rules and laws for every little perceived injustice.

JQP

the free market isn’t free.
end the protections to companies and business – so they essentially are “peers” to potential employees and your presumption of fairness is workable. However, if business is accepting of the governmental protections and benefits that laws and courts provide to them, they are either ignorant or blind to the fact that the same government can provide some minor protections for the individuals and employees and customers they intend to business with.
its a double edged sword, cuts both ways.
Suck it up business.

Jamie

Seems like we’re attacking a symptom and not the root of the problem. In the video, you’ve got a single mom – strike one; apparently not well educated as she’s working as a cashier at Walmart – strike two. Strike three is just waiting around the corner disguised as a pack of cigarettes or a boyfriend with a temper.

These are symptoms of a breakdown in:

1. The traditional family, which supports children in a much better way than a single parent can. One person cannot be the best mother and father to a child. No matter how good they are and how hard they try, they’re raising a child in lesser circumstances than he/she deserves.

2. Education – We don’t hold our own children accountable for attending school and
getting good grades. We don’t sit down and teach our kids the ABCs, right and wrong, cause and effect. We don’t set a good example for them to follow.

3. Moral decay and the dumbing down of society. We raise up heroes like Paris Hilton and Miley Cyrus; we go on Maury and try to determine who the father of this baby is; we glorify sports stars who beat up their girlfriends.

Joe

Yeah, she should totally marry the boyfriend with a temper problem, that will solve the moral decay that is suppressing wages!

Jeff

Or she could have simply used birth control and gone to college in the first place.

Joe

He probably took the condom off before slipping it in before she could notice, classic situation when it comes to having a boyfriend with temper problems!

TLeetT

Your morality soap box manifesto doesn’t resolve the current (lack of) wage fairness issue. You conveniently overlooked the people who ARE married and who are trying to support their families on these wages? How can they afford to or have the time to get additional education when they are working multiple sub-poverty jobs? Looking down your nose at people who are trying to get by and blaming the poor for not living the life you belive is moral is not going to solve anything. And considering the additional growing lack of support for family planning and education in this country, we are not going to turn this boat around anytime soon. In fact, it’s becoming a self-fulfiling prophecy.

shorelines

Or maybe she was married when she had her child and her spouse left the family or died.

But you know what – it doesn’t matter. She is doing a job and helping to create profits. She deserves a living wage. Period.

PaulJ

Walmart should estimate the amount of their employee’s tax payments which go to protecting the Chinese labor competition and refund it to them.

James

Unlike manufacturing companies, which compete with China on a daily basis, Walmart only has domestic competition. Forcing Walmart (and Target, and Menards, and McDonalds) to pay their employees more does not impact our global competitiveness. It only affects prices and/or profits. I would prefer that Walmart pay a living than to have to supplement with various forms of welfare. So, yes.

davehoug

However a requirement that Walmart pays more = all pay more = manufacturing employees would deserve a bump to recognize their value above minimum wage. THAT makes China happy because it DOES impact our global competitiveness …… Which give jobs to China

TLeeT

Just because I don’t shop at Walmart, doesn’t mean Walmart doesn’t benefit from my financial support. I’m perfectly fine with my tax dollars assisting those who are in need, and yet by not pay a living wage Walmart benefits from my taxes.

In addition, the huge disparity between what the Walton family “earns” and the pitance they pay their front line employees is sickening beyond compare. By following the money, my statement above proves that I’m subsidizing the 1%, which I find to be abhorent and outrageous!

AndyBriebart

I say we do it like Venezuela. The government knows what’s best for business.

kevins

As long as you are being sarcastic, would not the converse hold true?

Joe

Yes, nationalize the oil industry and bring gas prices down.
We should invade a couple countries first though just to be safe, so it looks more like Norway and less like Venezuela.

kevins

My second son just left a management position at Walmart for a better job. Walmart had promoted him twice in the last three years, which translated into more responsibility and hours in the store in exchange for an additional $1.20 or so in wages, and no improvement in the usual benefit package offered, such as it is. He worked for them for eight years, through college and a transition from outstate to the metro area, and we were always grateful for the lessons learned about work ethic, customer service and so on, although truth be told, it was we who provided those lessons, not his employer. Upon leaving, he was told how the produce section had never looked better, and that he would be promoted again, but eight years was enough for him. People may conjecture that increasing the wage for the lowest paid employees will hurt business, but my wife and I wonder how much it costs Walmart to recruit, retrain and replace competent employees who leave…bet it’s a bunch (and guess who gets to bear those costs of doing business)!
BTW…I’m all for increasing the minimum wage.

Reedak

Maybe I am not understanding the math here. It would cost Walmart $4.8 billion to save the government $300 million and that’s good math? Walmart could save >90% by just giving the government the $300 million. In 2012 Walmart paid $4.6 billion in taxes to the government which is 15 times the “cost” to the government of the food stamps.

Jeff

Good point, so many people act as if Walmart doesn’t pay taxes or contribute to the tax base in the first place…as if Walmart itself was a drain on tax payers. Doing a small amount research proves that thought process is incorrect. Even including government benefits (which Walmart has no control over) Walmart is still a major net tax payer.

PaulJ

True; but, as a major importer, how much have they contributed to the decay of the tax base?

Jeff

Be specific, use numbers…what exactly do you mean by the “decay of the tax base”?

davehoug

I don’t have numbers. But look at how much stuff in a hardware store is made off shore. Used to be a high school graduate could provide for a family on one job. THAT is the decay we are talking about. See Detroit for more examples.

davehoug

Our huge trade deficit HAS decayed the US tax base. But lay that at the feet of Congress. Walmart uses import laws, they don’t make them.

Verna

Actually, they point they made was that Walmart could spend that money on employee salaries but would get that $4.8 billion BACK by charging a little bit more for their products. Ultimately, tax payers would save $300,000,000. I presume we would not spend an extra $300 million dollars on inflated mac&cheese.

Joe

But then people would pay for things at Walmart at cost! What a nightmare!
Alternatively, a conservative’s paradise.

eric

Maybe Joe, you should take an economics course before you stick your whole leg in your mouth.

Joe

What are you talking about?

Pearly

No. But lets say wally decides to pay more. Then what?

Joe

Then people might change their opinions on the question “Should Walmart pay its workers more?”

davehoug

Walmart is a stand-in for all big retail outlets. They are the most visible but I doubt they can pay much different than Target or Sears or any other retail place for the same jobs.

Joe

Yep, and there was a reason that the question wasn’t about Costco.

Joe

Maybe those workers on food stamps can apply to better jobs, then they won’t have to rely on Walmart or food stamps any more! Oh, wait, those jobs have screening questions where they ask if you have ever been enrolled in an entitlement program.

shorelines

What?

Joe

You’ve never seen those questions on job applications?

shorelines

No I haven’t.

Joe

I have, it’s terrifyingly sad when people are prejudged for taking that to which they are entitled.

eric

I have not seen any question asking about entitlement programs on an employment application. I challenge you to provide proof, as this practice would likely be illegal.

Joe

It sounds illegal anyway, it might appear with the language “government assistance” but that’s more of a semantics thing, I suppose I could be wrong as well. I’m not going to rat anyone out or hunt down applications I’ve seen years ago when I was looking for a job, that’s for sure, but I know I’ve seen questioning along those lines. My apologies if I’m misinterpreting or misremembering, but I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily something I’ve seen on a lot of applications or anything like that, it’s not a conspiracy, it’s anecdotes.

Joe needs a nap

Never

siren

They do, but it’s a tax write off thing. Also, it’s incredibly difficult to find a better paying job if all you have is retail experience, even if you have worked for the same company for years, and have obviously shown improvement.

Joe

My apologies, I guess I did not understand, I always thought it was a little bit of an offensive question to ask about and could give potential employers an avenue to project bias onto a potential candidate. I thought it was explicitly for screening, but that’s a logical explanation for what I’ve seen, and it still seems a bit contradictory to me.

davehoug

I venture that question is put there by government for their needs. Perhaps to decide on job incentives to be paid when X people are moved off entitlements.

KTN

Just heard some clown Republican representative on the news, and he stated that with this increase, “literally thousands of people will lose their jobs” Now of course he is to stupid to literally use the word literally correctly, but beyond that failing, he sounded like he believed what he was spewing. I literally blew my G&T out my nose, oh wait, i figuratively blew that G&T out my nose.
If there were a prize for idiocy, the Republicans win – hands down (thousands of lost jobs hehe).

whitedoggie44

And your clueless president and clueless democrats should take credit since 50% of all job creation since obama elected were low wage jobs- No wonder they want to increase wages, to cover for their total failure to grow the economy.

davehoug

Walmart has over 4,000 stores in the US. If one aisle is converted to self-serve check out each…….then yes literally thousands WOULD lose a job.

shorelines

I think Wal-Mart’s profits (and those of every other company that fails to pay all workers a living wage) are artificially high because, against the natural laws of human decency, they pay people less than it costs to survive to work another day. Their profits are propped up by our collective grudging willingness to keep people from starving to death.

You know what – let them have it all – gobble up everything – more more more more profits. But stop blaming those at the bottom of their gluttonous heap for needing food and shelter. Someone needs to do these jobs. Even if everyone were equally intelligent and well educated – someone would still need to stock shelves at Wal-Mart and they would still need to eat.

Either force those that profit from their labor to pay a living wage or agree that no company should be forced to pay more than the most desperate candidate is willing to accept and accept in turn the responsibility collectively through our government for making up the difference between the wage and survival. But stop shaming the people doing the work that keeps profits high and goods cheap for needing to be alive to do it.

Jere

Absolutely. Adequately-paid employees have more pride in their work, are more productive, are more likely to cheerfully serve customers, and need to rely less on public subsidies.

What in the world? Why was my last comment removed? It was a clear rebuttal to Joe’s comment…it involved clear context for Joe’s chosen quote and I added my own quote from Mr. Friedman. I find it very disturbing that MPR would get involved in censorship while accepting public dollars. I hope I can get a very valid reason why my comment was removed, also the specific rules that were broken would be nice to know…if my comment violated a rule then I hope that the more left leaning comments are held to the same standard. At least address my direct question instead of deleting my comments.

Guest

What in the world? Why was my last comment removed? It was a clear rebuttal to Joe’s comment…it involved clear context for Joe’s chosen quote and I added my own quote from Mr. Friedman. I find it very disturbing that MPR would get involved in censorship while accepting public dollars. I hope I can get a very valid reason why my comment was removed, also the specific rules that were broken would be nice to know…if my comment violated a rule then I hope that the more left leaning comments are held to the same standard. At least address my direct question instead of deleting my comments like a coward with a delete button.